Love abounds within Las Vegas’ Cirque du Soleil shows

Love exists in Las Vegas; you can find it all around. But perhaps one of the coolest places to spot love has a high concentration: Cirque du Soleil. The production company, known for its spectacular Vegas shows (The Beatles LOVE, KÀ, “O,” CRISS ANGEL Mindfreak Live!, Zumanity, Mystère and Michael Jackson ONE), has also been a nurturing environment where love stories have begun and grown and families have formed and flourished. Boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, children and parents, performers and stagehands, front of house and back of house, mixed between all the shows, within the band of hundreds of Cirque employees, the ties that bind are many. It’s an intricate tapestry of love, and here are three of those stories.

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It’s U.K. native Brian Dewhurst’s job to help open Mystère at Treasure Island by playing the comical and mischievous clown that leads the audiences into laughter. However, the 84-year-old—who has been with the show since its inception—also plays real-life patriarch to Nicky and Laetitia Dewhurst.

Nicky and Laetitia rouse the audiences of Zumanity at New York-New York, playing the sexually rambunctious couple, Dick and Jessica. The couple onstage are husband, wife and parents offstage, married 10 years. Nicky joined Mystère in 1990 along with his father before moving over to Zumanity where Laetitia, also of English descent, was a part of the original cast. They were set up on a blind date and met at a nightclub in town. “Well, I walked outside of the club and I was like, ‘I don’t even know what this guy looks like,’ so I called him and told him to come outside, too. So, he came outside and then yeah, we didn’t spend a day apart after that,” Laetitia said, smiling.

And Dad said they’re simply meant for each other. “They’re just a lovely couple. I see them growing old gracefully together,” Brian said.

“Laetitia is the love of my life,” said Nicky, while casting eyes on his wife. “We have a compatibility in our thinking and the way we go through difficult decision in our lives; we always end up on the same page. She’s just a fantastic, beautiful person. I’m just very lucky.”

It wasn’t really luck that played a part for Montreal native Caroline Lauzon and Brazilian Marco De Santi, it was time that brought these two Cirque performers together.

“We flirted for, like, a decade; we took our time,” Lauzon said. “And (then) he was like, ‘I think you should be with me, this is ridiculous, we fit together,’ and I agreed. And here we are two dogs and a house later.” They met in Montreal at Cirque’s home base of operations, where each trained for the Las Vegas show they were to star in, both moving to town in 2005. Caroline started with the cast of “O,” eventually moving over to Zarkana. She later joined the cast of KÀ at MGM Grand, where she plays multiple roles that includes spear woman/forest person and the twin sister understudy. De Santi was a part of the opening cast of The Beatles LOVE at The Mirage, where he still currently stars as a skater in one of the show’s most dynamite numbers.

The sparks fly not only from his skating but from the love and relationship he shares with Lauzon. “We can be athletes; we can be lovers; we can be family,” De Santi said. “It’s so complete that it makes me, it blows my mind, how somebody can be so good at everything. … I never had a friend as complete as she—as a partner, not just the love side, but as a partner, too. It’s amazing. I can always count on her.”

(As this story was being compiled, good news was passed along that De Santi and Lauzon got engaged.)

Celebrating their first year of marriage this August, Russian Marina Tomanova and Brazilian Paulo Souza met nearly seven years ago, also in Montreal, where both were training for the show Viva ELVIS before it made its 2009 debut in Las Vegas. “We all lived in the same residence because we were all working on the show,” Souza explained. “So we were always partying together, hanging out. Probably like the second or third time we were out, I kinda stole a kiss from her. Seven years later, here we are.”

After Viva ELVIS ended its Las Vegas run, Tomanova continued performing in various Cirque du Soleil productions, but for the past year and a half she’s been with Zumanity, in the role of the character Star in the aerial dream act. Souza is part of the original cast of Michael Jackson ONE at Mandalay Bay, where he takes on the task of playing two roles: one of the “cool kids” in the “Bad” number and a “Thriller ghoul” in the “Thriller” number.

While working on different shows, both like working together in the same field and for the same company, they said. Asking each other for advice about challenges they may face while performing, or giving each other tips and support when it comes to their careers, is something they both value as a couple. Not to mention their similarities.

“I juggle, she juggles; I DJ, she DJs; I like electronic music, she likes electronic music; I like the circus, she likes the circus,” Souza said. “So, it’s very easy, our relationship, because we’re so similar.”

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Love lives in Las Vegas and it lives within Cirque du Soleil. Crossing over shows, it binds the company and the people in it together in such a unique and celebrated way. Families formed and thriving, living within a successful family of entertainment. Perhaps Lauzon said it best: “Thirteen years later, I love what I do so much it doesn’t feel like work. It’s like a family. It’s not like an office. And, meeting Marco, the connection was so natural. I never thought about dating someone from work, but it’s great. I love it.”